Mark David Chapman - The Plan To Murder John Lennon

The Plan To Murder John Lennon

Chapman said he started planning to kill Lennon while in Hawaii three months prior to the murder, after seeing him on the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. He also said that he had a list of people in mind, including Johnny Carson, Elizabeth Taylor, George C. Scott, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but that John Lennon seemed to be the easiest to find, although he has separately said that he was particularly caught up in Lennon. Chapman's planning, as discussed in later parole hearings, has been described as 'muddled'.

Chapman went to New York in October 1980, intending to kill Lennon, taking his unloaded gun with him. He left for a short while in order to obtain ammunition from his unwitting friend Dana Reeves in Atlanta, and returned to New York in November.

After going to the cinema and being inspired by the film Ordinary People, Chapman returned to Hawaii, telling his wife he had been obsessed with killing Lennon but had snapped out of it. He showed her the gun and cartridges, but she did not inform the police or mental health services. He made an appointment to see a clinical psychologist, but instead of waiting, he flew back to New York on December 6, 1980. He offered cocaine to a taxi driver. He reports having re-enacted scenes from The Catcher in the Rye.

On December 7, 1980, the day before the killing, Chapman accosted singer-songwriter James Taylor at the 72nd Street subway station. According to Taylor, "The guy had sort of pinned me to the wall and was glistening with maniacal sweat and talking some freak speak about what he was going to do and his stuff with how John was interested, and he was going to get in touch with John Lennon."